European Parliament resolution on
the report of the extraordinary European Council (23 April 2015) - The latest
tragedies in the Mediterranean and EU migration and asylum

The European
Parliament,

- having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European
Union,

- having regard to the European Convention for the Protection of Human
Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,

- having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948,

- having regard to the Geneva Convention of 1951 and the additional
protocol thereto,

- having regard to its resolution of 9 October 2013 on EU and Member
State measures to tackle the flow of refugees as a result of the conflict in
Syria,

- having regard to its resolution of 23 October 2013 on migratory flows
in the Mediterranean, with particular attention to the tragic events off
Lampedusa,

- having regard to the debates held, since the beginning of the current
legislature, in the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice
and Home Affairs on 22 July 2014 on the Implementation of the Communication on
the Work of the Task Force Mediterranean; on 4 September on Frontex Activities
in the Mediterranean and on the Task Force Mediterranean; on 24 September on
the Commission 5th Annual Report on Immigration and Asylum (2013)[1]; on EASO Annual
report on the situation of Asylum in the European Union (2013); on JOT Mare on
21 April 2014,

- having regard to the annual reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on
the Human Rights ofMigrants, in
particular the report, published in April 2013, on the management of the EU’s
external borders and its impact on the human rights of migrants, and the report
published in April 2014, on Labour exploitation of migrants,

- having regard to resolution of 17 December
2014 on the situation in the Mediterranean and the need for a holistic EU
approach to migration,

- having regard to the 10 points action plan proposed by the European
Commission ahead of the extraordinary European council of 23 April 2015,

- having regard to the Speech by Martin Schultz, President of the
European Parliament, at the extraordinary summit of 23 April 2015,

- having regard to the European Council statement
of 23 April 2015,

- having regard to the declaration of
secretary general of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, on 26 april 2015 to the newspaper La
Stampa stating that “There is no military
solution to the human tragedy playing out in the Mediterranean," and that
"it is crucial that we take a
holistic approach that looks at the root causes, at security and the human
rights of migrants and refugees, and have legal and regulated immigration
networks",

a.
whereas more than 1554 migrants have
died since the beginning of 2015 according to the International Organisation of
Migration, with many more missing; whereas the drowning of more than 800
migrants on 19 April 2015 constitutes the biggest tragedy in the Mediterranean
since World War II,

b.whereas more than 30 000 persons have died
at sea in the past twenty years, pointing once more to the need to do
everything possible to save the lives of people in danger and to the need for
Member States to abide by their sea-rescue obligations according to
International Maritime Law;

c.
whereas the ‘Mare Nostrum’ patrolling,
rescue and surveillance operation launched by Italy to enhance the humanitarian
rescue activities in the Mediterranean, has during 364 days rescued 150 810
migrants; whereas the Italian Government has closed its Mare Nostrum operation,
with the justification that it constituted a “pull factor” encouraging migrants
and smugglers to attempt the sea crossing: a justification totally disproved by
the facts;whereas no search and rescue
operation of the same size has replaced Mare Nostrum since then due also to the
lack of solidarity from countries of the European Union, which have not been
living up to their responsibilities; whereas the end of Mare Nostrum meant the
end of huge boats solely devoted to search and rescue stationed in the high
seas close to the Lybian coast where most refugee boats get into distress;

d.
whereas the joint operation ‘Triton’
coordinated by Frontex has become fully operational on 1 November 2014 and has
border surveillance as its mandate, not search and rescue; whereas Triton
assets have been used for search and rescue under the coordination of the
Italian Search and Rescue coordination center which led to a complaint of
FRONTEX of the use of their assets by the Italian coastal guards in the high
seas; whereas tripling the budget of Triton, as decided by the European Council
on Thursday 24 April 2015, will not reduce the number of migrants dying at sea
given FRONTEX mandate, the type of equipment and the current 30-miles limit of
the operational area;

e. whereas the possibilities for people in need
of protection to legally enter the EU are very limited; whereas estimates
suggest that 90% of asylum seekers actually enter the EU in an irregular
manner; whereas the number of Schengen visa granted to Syrian nationals has
dramatically dropped in the course of the Syrian war, from 30,000 in 2010 to
almost zero in 2013;

f. whereas the neighbouring states of Syria,
according to UNHCR estimates host an estimated 3,9 million Syrian refugees;
whereas European Member States have taken only 37.000 Syrian refugees via the
resettlement programme of the UNHCR, while UNHCR is calling for 10% of Syrian
refugees to be resettled (370.000) and is urgently looking for at least 130.000
resettlement places for refugees with special protection needs; whereas 13
Member States have so far not been resettling a single refugee;

g. whereas the EU and its Member States
contribute to nurturing the criminal and dangerous business of human smuggling
by building fences and increasingly sealing off their external borders against
migrants and refugees - without providing possibilities for safe and legal
access to the EU; whereas the EU and its Member States are therefore failing to
deliver an adequate response to the deaths in the Mediterranean and the refugee
crisis in our neighbourhood,

h. whereas in the margins of the Justice and
Home Affairs Council (JHA) on 12 March 2015 the Interior Ministers of France,
Germany, Spain as well as the European Commission discussed a proposal by
Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano to outsource search and rescue, and
maritime control of EU borders,to
countries such as Egypt or Tunisia who would then bring the rescued migrants to
their shores; whereas this proposal aims to produce a “real deterrent effect,
so that fewer migrants would be ready to put their life at risk to reach
Europe’s coasts; whereas Ministers of Interior discussed at the JHA
Councilthe possibilities of setting up
refugee camps in Northern Africa and the possibility to process asylum
applications in these camps;

1.
Pays tribute to the men, women and
children who have died over the years in their attempt to reach a safe place in
Europe and expresses its sincere condolences, solidarity and support to the families
of the victims; calls the EU and Member States to do their utmost to identify
the bodies as well as the missing persons and inform their relatives;

2.
Recognises the need to operate a
radical and immediate shift in migration and asylum policies; condemns in this
regard the Council statement of 23 April 2015 that has failed to do so by
putting the emphasis on strengthening Fortress Europe with repressive measures
and treatment of migrants as if they were a threat instead of deciding to take
immediate measures with the aim of saving lives;

3.
Recalls that the EU and its Members
States have a responsibility in the war, chaos, economic misery, hunger and
deathrefugees and immigrants are
escaping from, including because of global neoliberal economic policies;

4.
Condemns the decision to triple FRONTEX
Triton operation budget, presented with extreme hypocrisy, in the statement of
the European Council, as a measure of search and rescue; recalls in this regard
FRONTEX Director statement to The Guardian on the eve of the extraordinary
summit that Triton cannot be a proactive search-and-rescue operation as this is
not in FRONTEX's mandate: a declaration not contradicted by the final statement
of the European Council of 23 April 2015; warns in this regard the Commission
and the Council that the Parliament will reject the 2016 budget in its role as
co-legislator if it does not include a specific search and rescue provision, as
well as it will reject any provision of additional EU funds for 2015 if they are not exclusively devoted to search and rescue and
humanitarian assistance in order to save lives; calls for the suppression of
the FRONTEX agency and the transfer of its budget on measures aiming at saving
lives, including search and rescue, relocation and resettlement;

5. Notes
the absence of consensus among Member States on the needed political shift to
address the death in the Mediterranean and finds it unacceptable that
governments continue to blame each other for lack of action; calls therefore
for a coalition of willing Member States prepared to take a lead to put in
place a multinational search and rescue operation to save lives, and to develop
mechanisms for increased solidarity and mutual support for refugee reception,
including with the use of EU funds; calls if enough members states are prepared
to cooperate to activate the enhanced cooperation procedure to achieve these
goals;

6.
Welcomes the provision as pledged by
some Member States at the Council meeting on 23 April 2015 of ships devoted
solely to search and rescue in the high seas and urges other Member States to
provide assets including boats able to station in the high seas solely devoted
to search and rescue in order to carry out a Mare Nostrum + that would be a
robust multi-national European search and rescue operation sparheaded by those
countries that are prepared to taking action focusing solely on saving lives;

7.
Condemns the decision of the Council to
concentrate all effective efforts, including military ones, only on the fight
against smugglers and the destruction of their vessels along the coasts of
Lybia or other North African countries and calls the EU and Member States not
to engage in any CDSP half civil half military operation in this regard;

8.
Warns on the potential impact of the
Council proposal “to use EUROPOL to detect and
request removal of internet content used by traffickers to attract migrants and
refugees, in accordance with national constitutions" as it might also be
used to hamper internet communication exchange among migrants and with migrant
support and solidarity communities, which have in the last months enabled to
save thousands of life; calls to take this concern into account if such action
would be undertaken by Europol and/or other authorities;

9. Condemns
the absence of any proposals to ensure safe and legal access to the EU for both
asylum-seekers and economic migrants, considering the extreme difficulty to
separate flight from wars, from dictatorial regimes or militias and from
economic disaster, and calls for ambitious proposals in this regard;

10.
Calls for the immediate issuing of
humanitarian visas at Member States embassies and consular office for
asylum-seekers as well as the introduction of a mandatory resettlement
programme at EU level instead of the weak voluntary resettlement programme
proposed by the Council;

11.
Calls the Commission and Member states to
immediately activate the Temporary Protection Directive (Directive 2001/55/EC)
in light of the current mass influx of refugees;

12. Condemns the vagueness of the commitment to increase emergency aid to
frontline Member States; urgently calls the Commission and Member states to
present a more ambitious and concrete proposal in terms of emergency aid;

13.
Condemnsthe reluctance of the Council
to commit to emergency relocation between all Member States; calls the
Commission and Member States toimmediately initiate a pilot relocation programme for Syrian and
Eritrean refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protectioncountries initially targeting Syrians as well
as Eritreans rescued at sea and disembarked in Greece and Italy, according to
UNHCR proposals to address current and future arrivals of asylum-seekers,
refugees and migrants by sea to Europe; calls also the Commission and Member
States to examine the possibility of mutual recognition of asylum decisions;

14.
Calls the Commission to suspend immediately the Dublin regulation and propose
immediate radical alternatives to this regulation that fails to ensure
effective access to asylum;

15.
Calls for a rapid and full transposition and effective implementation of the
Common European Asylum System by all participating Member States; calls Member
States in their transposition to adopt higher standards than the CEAS;

16.
Condemns the Council decision to move towards an acceleration of returns as
this will endanger the right to a fair assessment of applications for
international protection; reminds that no country in the world can be
considered as safe and that every person applying for asylum should have
his/her application assessed individually;

17.
Condemns the detention of migrants and calls for the suppression of detention
centers; supports efforts made in this direction in some Member States and
calls for the need to implement alternatives for detention;

18.
Calls Member States to comply with the international principle of non
refoulement: not only in words but also in deeds;

19.
Calls the Commission and Member States to
immediately suspend cooperation with Third Countries aiming at preventing migrants and refugees to reach a safe place in Europe and improving border control such
as Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Egypt which refugees are fleeing
from and to suspend the Khartoum and Rabat process; calls in this regard to
suspend any financial assistance to the Egyptian and Eritrean regime in light
of UN and NGO reports on human rights abuses;

20.
Rejects proposals by Member States to set up European asylum centres in third
countries and to involve Northern African countries into European search and
rescue with the aim of intercepting refugees and bringing them back to the
African shores; calls on the Commission in this regard to provide the
Parliament with an evaluation of the compliance of these proposals with
international law, in particular the Geneva Convention, and with other
practical and legal obstacles to the implementation of these proposals;

21.
Calls the Commission to develop and come up with an ambitious EU Agenda on
Migration based on a holistic and common approach and solidarity in full
respect of fundamental rights; calls in this regard the Commission to include
ambitious proposals for safe and legal access, relocation, resettlement and
search and rescue;

22.
Calls the Commission to put an end to all policies that are at the root of
migration flows, including its role in global economic policies, Common
Agricultural Policy in relation to Third countries and free trade agreements;

23.
Calls for the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security
Policy and Member States to re-evaluate the geo-political and global economic
roots of the mass exodus from the arc of instability stretching from
Sub-Saharian Africa through the Mediterranean to South Asia and to recognise
the responsibility of the EU, NATO and Member States in the permanent wars and
chaos of these regions; states in this regard that the stepping up of
cooperation with Turkey as announced by the Council in view of the situation in
Syria and Irak is far from being a politically and democratically viable solution;

24.
Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the President of the
European Council, the President of the Commission, the Vice-President of the
Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security
Policy, the presidents of the parliaments of the Member States.